Making It Jamaica Again

Jamaica’s tourism minister, Edmund Bartlett is on a mission to bring more Canadians to the Caribbean island in the next five years and he has a clearly defined plan that makes him confident that he can deliver positive results, reports Bob Mowat in this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press.

“The purpose of this mission,” Bartlett said during a recent visit to Canadian Travel Press’ office in Toronto, “is to discuss with our partners a strategic alliance for growth. This alliance will focus on a two- to three-year strategic growth program with an objective of lifting the arrivals from Canada to 500,000 by 2021. Currently, we’re at 390,000, so we’re really going after 110,000 more Canadians.”

To that end, Bartlett sat down with Jamaica’s key Canadian tour operator, airline, travel trade and travel agency partners to discuss the plans to grow Jamaica’s business out of Canada.

The minister also met with key investment partners here as Canadian investment in Jamaica’s tourism industry has been growing.

“The trade partners have responded by saying that there’s a need for greater price efficiency within the Jamaican space and [a need] to look at a wider variety of accommodation offerings so as to meet the varied demographics of Canada,” says Bartlett, “so we’re saying that this is where the new investments would come in because we have to get the investment partners who are willing to focus on certain segments [of the market].”

In fact, Bartlett noted that Jamaica passed legislation governing timeshare developments on the island at the beginning of May of this year, which should help expand the options available in the island’s accommodation portfolio.

Plus, the minister added, Jamaica has also launched a “shovel-ready” program for investors that provides a range of services to them so that they can get their projects up and ready as quickly as possible and with a clear time-line on how the project will roll out.

Karisma Hotels and Resorts has been the first to take advantage of this program, preparing to break ground in January 2017 on a US$900-million mega project in St. Ann that will see 10 hotels built over the course of the next decade and which will add 5,000 rooms to the island’s accommodation inventory.

For the full story, check out this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press by clicking here.